Third Circuit upholds court’s dismissal of plaintiff's race discrimination claim, finding that a single utterance of the phrase "you people" fails to establish a race discrimination claim.

The Third Circuit upheld the dismissal of a plaintiff's claims of race discrimination following her dismissal from a nurse anesthetist program.  The plaintiff received a failing grade and was dismissed from the program based upon poor performance, including her failure to follow doctors’ instructions, her failure to perform procedures property, and concerns "from some of her supervisors that she might kill a patient."  Following her dismissal from the program, the plaintiff alleged that she was discriminated against on the basis of her race, including her allegation that a supervisor used the phrase "you people" during the time when she was in the program.  In rejecting her claim, the Third Circuit noted that, "[w]e have previously expressed skepticism that use of this phrase alone is 'so revealing of discriminatory animus that it would enable a fact finder to conclude that a discriminatory attitude was, more likely than not, a motivating factor in the decision'" and "[w]e continue to find it unlikely that a single utterance of the phrase ‘you people’ suffices to establish a claim of racial discrimination."  In particular, the Third Circuit found that the plaintiff largely conceded that she made the mistakes that were the subject of her performance evaluations and, as a result, that she was unable to establish that her dismissal was a pretext for discrimination.

Case Law Alerts, 3rd Quarter, July 2014